Pandemics, Authoritarian Populism, and Science Fiction by Jeremiah Morelock

Author:Jeremiah Morelock [Morelock, Jeremiah]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fiction, Science Fiction, General, Military, Asian American, Social Science, Sociology
ISBN: 9781000353778
Google: TPkWEAAAQBAJ
Barnesnoble:
Publisher: Routledge
Published: 2021-03-21T03:02:42+00:00

I Am Legend (2007)

Moving to 2007,10 it was between the 9/11 bombings and Obama’s election (the country’s first black president). During the “war on terror” [white] racial anxieties were directed to Arabs, Muslims, and South Asians, exacerbating racializing tendencies that were already happening (Cainkar and Selod 2018). A wave of strong conservatism accompanied the Bush presidency, as well as publicized willingness of the military to torture, dehumanize, and brutalize (real or suspected) enemies—inspiring concerned debate. While many were appalled at knowledge of torture or photos from Guantanamo Bay, many supported military excesses. White nationalist militias were on the rise domestically (Keller 2009). As evidenced by Obama’s election, much of the country was ready to see black men in positions of central power and influence. Yet Bonilla-Silva and Dietrich (2011) caution this was not due to America being truly “post-racial”; rather it was an expression of white America’s growing colour-blind racism. Surrounding the turn of the millennium, disaster films boomed again, as they had in the early 1970s. Several blockbusters featured Will Smith battling alien Others (Independence Day, Men in Black, Men in Black 2). Starting around 2003, zombie films have boomed (Wonser and Boyns 2016).

In I Am Legend (2007), the plague has returned to the character of an infectious disease; it is a genetically altered form of measles virus intended to cure cancer. And it is now solely the fault of medical science rather than the military. Director Francis Lawrence provides no indication that the choice to move from biological warfare to lethal consequences of cancer cure as the cause of the virus had anything to do with critique of the medical or scientific establishment. When discussing the decision in an interview, he said:

These horrible viruses can pop up out of nowhere, it’s not just bio-terrorism. It can be a change in the environment that brings an unseasonable grain to the area which attracts an animal with a disease and something is born and spreads.

(Turek 2007)

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